It’s not feasible for a Captain to turn every mission into Saving Private Ryan

So basically, four years ago when I started drawing this comic was around the time I’d started working as a professional animator, I started the website during the midseason break on the first season of Ugly Americans. Usually animators can count on being unemployed several months a year between big projects, so I started plotting out a MGDMT graphic novel to work on in my downtime that would explain a lot of Commander’s backstory. Fast forward four years and I have not actually ever had to deal with unemployment, so I’m kind of trying to abridge that story and inject it into the comic during regular updates or else you’ll never get a chance to see any of this backstory.

Anyway that’s a long-winded way of saying “I’m sorry this update is so terribly wordy”.

Thank you for the backstory Coel, always good to see the mindset of the creator. However, it’s been a very long time. You have provided us immense entertainment, have taken a bite out of both stereotypes of how modern man should carry himself, and given yourself quite the resume. If you retired from the comic now we will all have been profited from it. (Not that I want you to retire. I love the comic since I discovered it in the beginning.)

You owe no one an apology, and we all owe you a great deal of thanks for everything you’ve given us.

It took a while to figure out why Angel’s line sounded weird to me, but eventually I realized I’ve never heard that expression before. I’ve heard of putting square pegs in square holes and round pegs in round holes, squeezing round pegs in square holes and hammering square pegs in round holes and beveling square pegs to fit in round holes (like an unwatched cheetah), but I’ve never heard of making your holes fit your pegs. What an enlightened future where the idea of making the world fit the people in it instead of the other way around is commonplace enough to result in such altered metaphors.

Triangles are unique among the geometric shapes because it is impossible to create a no-point looped (a.k.a., circular or oval) 3D object out of them. In other words, if you want to make a 3D object based on triangles, all of the component 2D shapes must be either triangular or some other shape which has definitive points and sides. If you attempt to create a triangular 3D object with a no-point looped component, you get a cone, which has none of the distinguishing characteristics of a triangle, though it is similar.

Other 3D objects can have a no-point looped component while still maintaining the basic characteristics of their 2D base, such as a cylinder which is based on a rectangle.

I have no idea if this is actually relevant to your question, but it seems like a smart piece of technibabble to me, so here you go.

I was kinda wondering why Rock Lobster was ‘ordered’ to wear his motor cross attire while Angel still rocks the BDU’s, I guess the last panel answers that question. (Can you even get blood stains out of navy whites? )

Did anyone else read Angel’s saying, “pay grade” as “gay parade”?
No? Just me? Darn it… But it was an interesting microsecond of wondering how a pride parade would result in almost wearing one’s guts for garters.

I’ve enjoyed the stories and humor from the comic, learning how dedicated Lobster is just makes him cooler. I miss when action heroes used to be actually beefy instead of thin and depending on special effects (Well, Wolverine & Colossus are kind of a throwback to that).

When you take a close look at the fundamental basics of biology & how life comes together eventually in a “trial & error* sort of way over the course of time, you may realize that life IS messy…And some deaths are too, as Cmdr. Lobster ALMOST shows us.

Sharpnell, all it takes is one fast, relatively big slicing up the right part of stomachand spillage ocurs. Or it was a planet of gutrippers… or just the rule of cool and badassery(due to him being still awake)

While this is admirable in most circumstances, as some comics go way too far in the other direction, I’ve come to the conclusion that most of the people that bitch about WORDSWORDSWORDSWORDSWORDS will do so if you use more than ten words per panel. Meaning, they’re ridiculous caricatures and/or trolls.

Holy fuck. Can someone say Kickstarter? I for one would *adore* having a print bound copy of the Commander’s backstory. I understand publishing the comic would be somewhat tricky with all copywrite and characters, but if there’s ever some trickery where you’re between projects but not unemployed (I have no idea how animation work works and can thus make that rosy contradiction) Kickstarter could probably get you funded for a graphic novel damned quick! In the meantime, thanks for all the hard work and wonderful story you’re giving us now!

A kickstarter to make a graphic novel wouldn’t really work out well, right now time is more valuable and hard for me to accumulate than money. There’s not really a between-projects-not-unemployed middle ground, you’re either working on something or waiting at home for a new job.

Then what we need to do is have a Kickstarter campaign to get you enough cash that you never have to work again, so you can devote all your time for the rest of forever to only the projects YOU want to do!

Wait, how does the future military industrial complex not love a commander who blows up lots of expensive equipment? That’s the calibre of officer they need to keep order books full, employment up and help fight the space commies.

Also, he better have throttled someonething to death with those intestines.

Makes a bit of sense when you think about it. The military puts a large amount of money into soldiers (not as much as some equipment, but money is money after all), and if those soldiers don’t take care of themselves, it’s that same military that has to patch them up/bury them. On top of that, I’ve never known one military that had more money than they knew what to do with. Thus, this particular soldier that they spent quite a bit of money on (I imagine that nose was a mother to get right in action figure modelling) is an asset they’d be loathe to lose.

Yep. It’s the humor & the iconic stereotypes that keep me (I won’t speak for anyone without their prior approval) coming back for more of Cmdr. Badass & company…Besides, if some people might worry that you might run afoul of copyright lawyers for your work here, you’ve got the “Fair usage” clause concerning parodies as defense. Me? I don’t give so much as even a single squat about people who make their living by stomping on other peoples’ fun & enjoyment.

TL;DR–A specific compliment for Coelasquid to keep it up & don’t let detractors get her down.

Ok, I don’t speak english, so I have to ask to be fully sure. She says he wrecked up some very expensive government property.
Is she implying HIM to be the expensive property? As in ‘he got hurt to save them’?

That’s how I understood the joke. In the US military they refer to recruits as property. Get caught cutting yourself shaving in the morning , “WHAT DID YOU DO SOLDIER? DID YOU JUST DAMAGE GOVERNMENT PROPERTY?”.

If you can translate the garbled Commander Badass speech, he says the ship they’re on will have to be scrapped for parts. That ship probably barely made it out of there, which would probably be the real reason for demoting him.

It isn’t that he got expensive materiel damaged–it was that it was unnecessarily and excessively damaged. That was likely the excuse given–he has a track record of fighting them on things like “not wanting laser cannons grafted to his chest”, and apparently used the court system to do this.

Any military is pretty much the same in a number of regards: risking your life and equipment to save a soldier’s life will get you commendations. However, fighting their ability to order you, and worse winning, will piss off your superiors something fierce, and they will absolutely take any opportunity to get some form of petty revenge on you.

In Rock’s case, they found the perfect opportunity to take him from command and put him in a position where he can’t cause too many PR issues and still be able to give them good publicity when they want it. The loss of pay grade is a bit surprising, usually they’d do something along the lines of a lateral demotion–you’ve got the same rate, but you lose the position. Commands are rather prestigious to even have, and losing one is not good, and being denied further ones are also not good for one’s career. In all likelihood, this basically permanently sidetracked his career to certain crappy details (or perceived to be crappy), which would potentially explain why he has to wrangle excessively macho men in the past.

Yep. Even in OUR world, once you join the military you are considered to be “government property.” The central bank (Federal Reserve) places a Financial Bond on a person for legal purposes & legal defense when they put their signature on the Contract of Employment. In essence, it’s the “purchase price” for that person’s term of service. Although technically, the person is “renting” themselves out for an agreed period of time, rather than “selling out.”

One of the side effects of this “people become property mentality” is that if the person takes some Liberty time during active duty, visits a beach & winds up getting a bad enough sunburn that hampers their ability to work, then they can literally be charged with “Damage to Government Property.”
Yes, I was told this when I was in the Navy.

I’m glad we’re getting some backstory. it seems like a good time for a longer story arc, I feel like the last long term story was the Pretty Man curse. I like how well this comic can go from a series of one off days/moments/experiences to telling a narrative.

Wait…I’m confused. I thought the Commander was a Space Marine? Angel’s uniform looks to be Navy. How’d she get what I’m assuming is a Marine command? (Or how’d he get a Navy command?) Or does the nondescript space future not really care about separate branches?

In the real world, the Marines are a sub-branch of the Navy. However, under the properly-issued orders, Marines can be “detached & reassigned” for temporary duty under other Branches or even by themselves for specific operations.

I really appreciate that you’re trying to limit the wordiness. Too many people– creators and fans– don’t seem to realize that this is mainly a visual medium. Long conversations are par for the course, but when the speech bubbles take up almost as much space as the art, it’s time to re-think the format. You seem to have a good sense of visual balance; thank you for using it.

Wordy? You call this wordy? You should go check out the last year or so of Too Much Information’s pages. (Disclaimer: I love TMI, it just gets so wordy sometimes that I have to take breaks reading a single page.)

Hey Coalesquid, I don’t know if it is just firefox or what, but I’ve been on three different computers accessing your site through the manlyguys.com url and it says it is a reported attack for viruses. I’ve messaged them saying it isn’t, but you should get it checked out nontheless. Love your work and would hate to see people turned away because of that

No problem whatsoever! Yeah, you got a lot of words in, but you still managed to put in a punchline. Most comics just go full exposition, and ignore the purpose of the comic. You’ve always got a funny at the end.

Have I mentioned before that you’re amazing? Cause you’re amazing. Kthxbye.